“Hey~ Over here, over here~ Look here! Directly below, five o'clock!”

Not long after Ruoyu and Xiaoling arrived over the castle, a slightly childish voice floated on the wind, calling out to them a few times.

Following the sound, the two quickly spotted a boy in a miniature purple long suit on a balcony at the edge of a turret.

At that moment, Feng Bujue was standing on tiptoe, waving his hands in their direction and shouting loudly.

Seeing this, Ruoyu and Xiaoling exchanged glances without a word, and reached a consensus… together they steered their magic brooms toward the balcony.

“You two have certainly kept me waiting.” After they landed, Feng Bujue recited with a smile.

“How did you know we were coming?” Xiaoling asked after landing. “Did you install surveillance around the castle?” As she spoke, she inadvertently turned her head to look at the outer wall of the castle.

“Your whereabouts… were naturally told to me by Dracula,” Feng Bujue replied. “As long as a relatively large creature with a soul enters the area around the castle, the Count can sense it.” As he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed upwards. “By the way, there are barriers on the outer layer of this castle… and there are two layers. It was I who asked the Count to let you in… that's why you were able to fly in, otherwise you would have crashed into the energy wall long ago.”

“You already know about Xiao Tan's situation, right?” At this moment, Ruoyu added.

“Of course,” Feng Bujue responded. “But… it’s quite a surprise… Could it be that he perished together with Po Jun?”

“He was killed by me,” Xiaoling interjected.

“Huh?” Feng Bujue was stunned upon hearing this. “What’s this all about?”

“You can ask him yourself after the match is over,” Xiaoling said, still a little annoyed when she spoke of this. “Anyway, let's exchange information first.”

“Oh… sure.” Feng Bujue was very good at reading people, so he didn't pursue the matter further and just turned around and said, “Let's talk as we walk…”

…

Turning to another group, let's look at the members of Saber.

After wandering around the huge chapel for a while, the three found a vertical cylindrical passage.

The diameter of the passage was about three meters, and the circular walls were embedded with many small platforms of different heights, each platform about a meter square, just enough for an adult to stand firmly.

Going up through this cylindrical passage, one could turn to the higher part of the chapel, where there was a staircase leading to the upper loft. Long Ge and the others explored it and found, in addition to unmanned armor throwing boomerangs, a strange monster with six hands and a body similar to a human female, as well as fire-breathing monsters fixed to the floor in the shape of dragon skulls.

After clearing out these monsters in the loft, they searched the area and actually found a piece of equipment. Unfortunately, it was just a common-quality sword, slightly better than the ordinary-grade shop goods in the exchange… but only slightly.

So, the three of them, with the thought that “any gain is better than none,” reluctantly returned. Fortunately, the distance of this return was not too far, and the route was all the way down, which didn't take much physical strength.

Returning to the cylindrical passage, they cleared out a little devil and bypassed a ghost fire-like monster that looked like siu mai and floated very slowly, and then entered the space directly below the chapel.

That was an hourglass-shaped room composed of multiple rectangular platforms arranged symmetrically from left to right. When the three members of Saber entered it… a mini-Boss was already waiting there.

This time, the mini-Boss was a lion-scorpion beast that was five meters long and about two and a half meters tall. Whether it was health, speed, or attack method… it was a little stronger than the giant skeleton with the club. Of course… only "a little bit."

The monster's attack pattern was still relatively simple, roughly three types: first, stabbing or whipping players with its giant python-like scorpion tail; second, spitting ranged fireballs at players from its mouth; and third, pouncing directly to grab and bite.

For the members of Saber, this second mini-Boss was even easier than the previous skeleton Boss, because… Long Ge could tank all of its attacks, and without breaking his defense…

So, after a quick test, Long Ge held up his shield and pushed forward. No matter how the lion-scorpion beast attacked… Long Ge didn't lose any health anyway, just a little stamina.

In this way, Qisha and Tanlang, under the cover of Long Ge, used low-cost methods to output evenly, slowly but surely taking down the mini-Boss.

“Still no rewards…” After the lion-scorpion beast breathed its last, Long Ge walked to its corpse and looked down.

“Doesn't seem to be any hints either…” Qisha muttered.

But Tanlang… was silent and thoughtful…

Five minutes later, the three completed a simple search and rest, and then continued on their way. Due to Jue-ge's casual, willful, and unhappy decision… their journey was destined to be very long.

In the next fifteen minutes, the three passed through several rooms again, fortunately without encountering too many forks in the road… Fifteen minutes later, they finally saw another red door.

This time, after passing through the white corridor between the two red doors, the system prompt that entered their ears was: [Castlevania Library].

“[Beep—]!” At the moment the voice sounded, Tanlang slapped his thigh and cursed, “I knew it! It was on the tip of my tongue… but I couldn't remember it! It's Castlevania!”

In fact… Tanlang had already vaguely sensed the setting of this castle along the way, but he just couldn't break through the last layer of paper.

This feeling… many people must have experienced it, that is—when thinking about a problem, you clearly know the answer is in your head, but it's just a little bit short, you can't remember it… that feeling is really very uncomfortable.

Feng Bujue had also encountered this kind of discomfort, and because he was extremely unhappy with this feeling, he built a mind palace and memory attic for himself… permanently solving the problem of information storage and retrieval in his brain…

“Castlevania… seems to be the name of an old game, right?” Seeing Tanlang's reaction, Qisha also muttered thoughtfully.

“A game series that has existed since the 1980s,” Tanlang sorted out his thoughts a little and began to popularize, “There are many works, and the standards are uneven; most are above a certain standard, but a small part are especially godly, and the rest are especially shitty…” He paused for a second and added, “After the 2010s, the number of related Castlevania works has obviously decreased, and it has gradually faded from people's sight. Later… neural connection technology gradually became popular, and single-player games showed an overall declining trend, so our generation basically hasn't played this series.” He looked at Qisha and continued, “Most people born after 2000 have a similar reaction to you when they hear the three words ‘Castlevania,’ they know it's an old game, but they have almost no concept of it other than the name.”

“You've said so much…” Long Ge interrupted from the side at this time, “…It seems you know this ‘Castlevania’ quite well?”

Unexpectedly, Tanlang replied, “No, I don't know it very well.”

“Hey hey…” Qisha squinted his eyes and said, “Then was that just made up?”

“How could that be…” Tanlang replied, “Although I don't ‘know it very well,’ I still know a little more than you.” He paused and explained, “A few years ago, I once bought an antique game console online, and the seller gave me all his game discs as well. So I played through a few, one of which was Castlevania.” He looked at the space ahead, “After coming to this castle, I always felt that the monsters and area names here had various senses of déjà vu… but because it had been too long, I couldn't remember it for a while.” He sighed, “Alas… until now, when I heard ‘Castlevania Library,’ I finally understood…”

“Oh…” Qisha muttered, “Since you know something about the setting, does that mean our next exploration will be easier?”

“That depends on…” As Tanlang spoke, he reached into his bag and took out the “treasure map” drawn on parchment and unfolded it in front of his teammates, “…this.”

…

At the same time, the top floor of Castlevania—the Throne Room.

“Let me give you a brief introduction…” Feng Bujue gestured to his two teammates and said to the monsters and Hill in the room, “These two are my companions—Si Yu Ruo Li, Bei Ling Xiao Gu.”

He didn't know what the system would translate these two IDs into, but he said them as usual.

“And these guys…” Jue-ge turned to look at his teammates again, “As I told you on the way… they are Count Dracula, Frankenstein, Mr. Werewolf, the Nameless Mummy, Mr. Gillman, and Mr. Hill.”

Feng Bujue had already told his teammates everything about Hill. In short… he randomly grabbed a physically fit homeless man on the street, and then used Musashi Koganei's invention to control him. Next, he set up a trap, so that Hill unknowingly helped him collect Van Helsing's diary.

“So… that’s everyone introduced.” Feng Bujue continued, “Next, I'll get to the main topic…” He glanced at Dracula and added, “Earlier today, Mr. Count and I have reached a consensus. At present, both of us are working together for each other's goals. And we have… two goals.” He paused for a moment, “First, is to kill the three members of Saber… namely Long Aomin, Qisha, and Tanlang.” He pointed to the crystal ball in the corner of the room, “Their every move in the city is completely under our surveillance. At this stage, we can let them jump around for a while longer, and use ‘this city’ as much as possible to wear down some of their lives and stamina.”

At this point, he changed the subject: “Second, destroy the Holy Amulet…” Saying that, he took the item out of his pocket and held it up, “Which is this thing in my hand.” He casually flicked the thing twice, “However, it is still in an indestructible state right now, and this situation will continue until noon today.”

“So what should we do now?” Ruoyu asked.

“We still have to split up,” Feng Bujue replied, already moving silently to Ruoyu's side. “First, I want you to keep the amulet for me.” Before he finished speaking, he grabbed Ruoyu's little hand and stuffed the amulet into her palm.

Seeing this scene, Dracula's eyes clearly showed a change, but he still held back.

“Due to the attributes of the Holy Amulet, Mr. Count and his friends cannot have long-term contact with it, which is why he clearly obtained the amulet back then, but could only keep it in a room far away from himself.” Feng Bujue said, pointing to Ruoyu's bag around her waist, “I have already explained to the Count that before noon arrives, our ‘dimensional pockets’ are the best place to keep the amulet, and he also knows… if we encounter any misfortune, the amulet will move to another location.”

When saying the last two sentences, Feng Bujue gave Ruoyu and Xiaoling a wink, obviously hinting at something to them.

With the team's tacit understanding and individual intelligence, the two naturally understood immediately that Jue-ge was telling them to be wary of the Count.

“As for me…” Feng Bujue received the response from his teammates' eyes and continued, “…I have to leave for a while to get something with Mr. Hill.” He looked at Hill with a playful smile, “Actually, I wanted to go get that thing myself this morning, but I really couldn't spare the time… after all, the layout here is more important, so I can only ask Mr. Hill to do it for me… and he… hehe… predictably did what I expected him to do.”

Hill was much more obedient at this time. Hearing Jue-ge's sarcasm, he didn't even hum, just stood there silently.

“The thing you want to get is Van Helsing's diary, right?” Xiaoling asked.

In the conversation not long ago, Xiaoling had told Jue-ge that she had the "ritual incantation" in her hand, and Jue-ge also roughly guessed that Xiao Tan and Sean's group of children had visited the strange German man.

“Yes,” Feng Bujue replied, “According to my knowledge reserve…”

The following paragraph is very different to the NPCs, because Jue-ge mentioned a lot of information beyond the "fourth wall," and the system had to intervene. Of course, the audience watching the live broadcast would not be affected.

“…This script we are experiencing is basically based on the plot of the movie *Monster Squad*.” Jue-ge said slowly, “As you can see, I have borrowed the strongest ‘momentum’ in this script… and stood with the strong villains. I won't list the advantages of this move, I'll just talk about the corresponding hidden dangers, that is… the positive characters in the movie, that is, the group of children who call themselves the ‘Monster Squad’… relying on the blessing of the ‘protagonist halo,’ they may come to ruin our good deeds.” He paused for half a second, “To put it simply… killing them seems like a good choice, and it wouldn't be difficult for us; but I know… that is absolutely, absolutely! not feasible.” He explained, “For example, if I were in the DC universe and tried to murder a major character in the DC universe… then I would definitely fail; even if I prepared carefully, I might be stopped by some very low-probability accidental events. This is because… in that universe, the life and death, and fate of each major character are intertwined, and may even affect the cause and effect of the entire universe. If we ‘interdimensional travelers’ interfere with these causes and effects, it will cause resistance from the ‘highest will’ of that universe. In severe cases… it is not impossible to be crushed to death by a meteorite, even the system can't save us.”

Saying all this in one breath, Jue-ge licked his lips and continued: “In summary, in order to achieve our goal, we have to take a detour… Taking this script as an example, it is best not to use too radical methods to stop those children, just control the diary.”

He said so much, but Ruoyu and Xiaoling didn't fully understand, they hadn't seen that movie, and they didn't know much about those kids. And the audience watching the game didn't understand it even more, but… regardless of whether they understood it or not, everyone had a similar feeling of "unclear but awesome" in their hearts…